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Sliding the Deck: 3 Uses of a Scrolling Web Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

Technological advancement has become a major game changer in people’s lives. It transformed the way we interact with and perceive our surroundings, affecting the trends’ direction in recent years.

The onset of technology, particularly the Internet, has altered the way businesses do presentations. Gone are the days when a simple pitch is enough to satisfy an audience. Now, companies can reach out to prospects through various mediums.

The creation of a Web site or page has become a requirement for a business to be available to its target market, and even in that area, things are constantly changing. The scrolling Web pitch is an innovation that eliminates separate Web pages and allows any site visitor to scroll through your company’s features and journey seamlessly.

To seal the deal with an investor, use a scrolling Web pitch to warm them up and draw them in before your actual presentation.

Here are three reasons why:

Easy to Edit and Monitor

Do you want to edit text or images on your pitch? The scrolling Web pitch simplifies the process and offers better efficiency. Its design makes the scrolling Web pitch easier to monitor. You don’t have to go to individual pages to keep your content consistent since you can see everything in one place. Uploading your pitch online also gives you some insight on who else is interested in your product or services.

Other than investors, interested parties you might have overlooked can access you anytime, anywhere. Monitoring your page analytics and views lets you know whether your deck effectively attracts people. It’s a way of getting feedback without directly asking for it.

Emotional and Aesthetic Appeal

In his article for Digital Telepathy, UX/UI designer Nathan Weller expounds on the benefits of pageless Web design. Aside from its technical functions, Weller highlights the scrolling Web pitch’s strong visual appeal. Its clean design not only brings together a combination of image and text that makes use of current graphic design trends but also communicates your story. Like an old-fashioned presentation, page-less pitches still depend on narratives to connect with its audience.

Unlike earlier versions of Web sites, your viewers are free to experience this narrative without the hassle of moving from one link to another. People can even interact with the page through various elements you can leave for your site visitors to enjoy.

Among these are simple animations like images that move or buttons that emit sound when someone hovers their mouse over them. The easy navigation it provides make scrolling Web pitches more understandable and palatable. It compresses information and data without compromising quality, saving both you and your client’s time.

Higher Lead Conversion

The end goal of any pitch is to increase sales leads and volume. Scrolling Web pitches achieve that by being attractive avenues for your prospects to interact with your business. The nature of its layout improves your prospect’s perspective on your product and leaves a better, more lasting impression on them.

Another advantage is how shareable your content becomes. Sharing articles, images, and even whole Web sites online is the new word of mouth in the age of the Internet. Because the page-less pitch is available at the click of a link, anyone can view and share it. This increases other people’s awareness of your product and expands your network of customers. With the scrolling Web pitch, the client goes to you.

Conclusion

There are many benefits to using a scrolling Web pitch. It’s easier to edit and is more visually appealing than page-by-page Web sites. It also effortlessly draws attention to your business, increasing lead conversion and expanding your connections.

While the page-less pitch doesn’t act as an exact replacement for an investor presentation, it’s still a good warm up before your actual speech. It may seem difficult to create, but with the help of a presentation guru, you can upload your own scrolling Web pitch in no time.

Contact our SlideGenius experts today for a free quote!

 

References:

Weller, Nathan B. “8 Reasons Why Pageless Design is the Future of the Web.” Digital Telepathy. June 5, 2013. www.dtelepathy.com/blog/design/8-reasons-why-pageless-design-is-the-future-of-the-web

 

Featured Image: “Electronic Library” by Emilio Labrador on flickr.com

5 Effective PowerPoint Delivery Methods for Presentations

Posted on by Rick E

Most presenters barely notice what particular presentation technique they’re using whenever they take the stage. This is because they’re not fully aware of how it could influence both their performance and their audience. When you prepare your pitch, decide whether you want to use a fast-paced approach or spend more time discussing your main points.

This provides a guide for organizing your ideas and translating them to your slides. While there are many presentation styles which work best for different speakers, there are also PowerPoint delivery methods that they can use to optimize their slides. Here, we’ll define some techniques introduced and practiced by popular presenters:

The Takahashi Method

Named after Masoyoshi Takahashi, this approach relies heavily on keywords with one main point placed per slide. Instead of using images, bullet points, or other visual elements, words are used as visuals.

This method requires many slides (depending on your content) since each one only has a few words displayed. Applying this method encourages your audience to pay more attention to you as the speaker, since you are the one explaining what’s projected on-screen.

The Kawasaki Method

Named after Guy Kawasaki, and also known as the “10-20-30” method (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 font size). This approach is commonly used for investor presentations where a short yet impactful approach is needed to stand out among the competition.

This allows you to give brief but understandable messages within a limited time.

The Lessig Method

Used by Lawrence Lessig, this style has a limited use of images, relying more on words, similar to Takahashi’s style. Concise words or statements are used and slides are changed around, depending on the words the presenter delivers.

This focuses more on telling a story and injects a more synchronized approach, generating interest and allowing audiences to be more attentive.

The Godin Method

Seth Godin’s technique is a combination of texts and images, where the speaker uses striking photos to let the pictures speak for themselves. This lets him explain what he’s trying to point out and reiterate his main ideas through images.

This approach differs from Takahashi and Lessig’s, since they’re more focused on conveying their message primarily with text. The advantage? Using this appeals to the audience’s passions and establishes an emotional connection with them.

The Steve Jobs Method

Steve Jobs’ style concentrates on large images and texts, focusing on one statement per slide and combining it with visual elements. This gives the presenter the chance to offer demonstrations and allow a more interactive way of communicating his ideas.

This method enables your performance to be more interesting and powerful, allowing the audience to get the message easily for maximum impact.

In Conclusion

Let your objectives dictate your manner of presenting. Situations requiring brevity and conciseness might require the Kawasaki Method. The Takahashi and Lessig methods favor a confident presenting style to better focus attention on the speaker. The Godin and Jobs methods use strong images that create strong emotional connections.

The key is to understand and identify your objective as a presenter. Once you know this, you can then decide on what presentation style to use. Choose which one of the delivery methods suits you the most. Let SlideGenius experts help you out!

Raising Capital? Consider a Scrolling Web Pitch!

Posted on by Rick E

Raising capital is complicated. There are a lot of pieces to put together, including selling your audience, knowing your valuation, how much capital you need, use of funds and much, much more.

The initial hurdle for countless companies comes at the intersection where entrepreneurs and investors meet. Entrepreneurs often stumble building their investment deck and effectively pitching which makes it that much harder to get people to give you the capital. Investors must believe in you and your abilities to manage and grow a company. The problem is that showing who you are and what you’re capable of can be difficult let alone doing it in a 10-15 minute window.

For that reason you need to put your heart and soul into the pitch, but not just the content, also the delivery. What does a perfect pitch look like, you ask? That is a matter of opinion and you’ll never see the “perfect pitch deck”, but recently its all about presenting your company in a unique way to stand out from the crowd.  One additional option you may consider is a scrolling web pitch. Scrolling web pitches incorporate a unique technique that allows the presenter to replace the generic professional PowerPoint click-by-click slides with an interactive, more organic and lively design.  This is not meant to replace the face-to-face PowerPoint pitch but a reinforcement and/or teaser to get the meeting.  Here are 4 reasons why you need to use scrolling web designs for you next investor presentation:

Keep Content Up to Date

In using a scrolling web pitch, you are making any future edits or updates to your text as easy as can be. This design simplifies the process and maximizes your use of time.

Stand Out from the Crowd and be unique

Most people email their large, boring and lifeless PowerPoint presentations to prospective investors, but it really doesn’t make sense to do that. Without context from the entrepreneur you’ll risk a misinterpreted message or worse they might not even move past the first three slides.  Treat you pitch with respect. Why be dull and lifeless when you can be unique, creative and memorable?

Monitor page analytics/views and keep consistency.

Data, data, data! Being able to keep your pitch up to date online and get analytics will help you assess the effectiveness of your deck. Additionally, you’ll have created another venue to market in. A great scroll web pitch will be able to sell itself without you being there, so any viewer could potentially bite in your concept.

Create more interest and leads

Analytics and views lead to increased interest and leads. Garnering and extrapolating public interest in your concept will serve as evidence to potential investors that it is quality and a great opportunity.

Think of it as PowerPoint presentation Darwinism: evolve your presentation or have it die. Though raising capital may be intimidating, challenging, and seemingly impossible, the process starts with how you present yourself to people.

We’ve created an example of a scroll web pitch that you can see here.

If you have any questions or comments about scroll pitches just comment them on this post?

3 Things You Must do at the Start of Your Presentation

Posted on by Rick E

Think of how the most recent Bond movies start.

They begin off with 8 minutes of Daniel Craig punching, shooting, and shoving his way through building walls, while back flipping onto moving boats, while explosions are going off everywhere, after which he gets a  wink and kiss from some girl who is probably in some Victoria’s Secret cover … and all of this happens before the credits even roll.

Set your corporate presentation alongside to that intro sequence. That’s your competition.  The world has changed into a viral and fast-paced society that needs instant gratification in every aspect of their lives. Audiences no longer hold the patience to listen to you going on and on about boring background or technical information. Your audience will judge you and decide whether you are even worth listening too within those first 8 minutes, probably even before that.

These next 3 steps are the key to maximizing your introduction, and in so doing, captivating your audience:

1)     Establish your credibility. Traditionally speaking, credibility is generated from two independent factors: trust and expertise. If your audience find you trustworthy and reliable they will feel compelled to listen to you, regardless of what you’re saying.  Unlike trustworthiness, expertise tends to be judged more objectively, with credentials, certifications or quality of information. So don’t be afraid to throw you titles and education at your audience. Charisma is the last piece in establishing credibility. If people like you, they will listen. Now, to apply credibility to your corporate presentation or investor presentation you only need a couple of slides. Demonstrate that your company has the right experience and you will put the audience into a constructive frame of mind – seeking to find ways to use what the presenter is offering, rather than seeking to find holes in your arguments.

2)     Empathize. Prospects are usually looking for somebody who understands the challenges they face, and who can offer a solution to these problems. After or during the time frame when you are sharing your credibility, present an outline of the specific issue or problem your work relates to. In doing this, you show your audience that you understand the problem. After drawing them in with your outline, spend your time showing how you can solve these problems the audience have. The key issue here is to make sure that you actually talk to the audience’s challenges; if the audience don’t recognize themselves in your portrayal, then you won’t succeed in displaying empathy.

albert-einstein-quote

3)     Promote Interaction. Try to start your presentation with a question or challenge for the audience. By presenting a well-judged puzzle and asking the audience to solve it, attention levels can quickly be raised. Careful to not do anything too hard or too easy, they are easy ways to make this tactic backfire and disengage the crowd. On a related note, it is most effective to promote interaction both at the beginning and at the end of your presentation. Most “presentation experts” simply walk up, say their “schpeel,” and walk off. Like reading a good story, they give you good content, but then stop. The point of a presentation is to achieve some sort of business related action. Sell, buy, invest, divest; it’s all part of the same root.  What is the point of your presentation if you don’t leave the audience with a call to action? Just because they listened to you doesn’t mean they’ll do anything else. Leave them with a “next step.”

Let’s sum up. Starting your presentation effectively is critical to its success. If done poorly, your introduction can singlehandedly loose your audience for the entire presentation. Know what the point of your presentation is, and act accordingly. Use these 3 tactics to maximize your next PowerPoint presentation.

Work Cited:
http://www.m62.net/presentation-theory/presentation-structure/how-to-start-a-presentation/





3 Tips for an Effective Investor Presentation

Posted on by Rick E

There’s nothing to it, just walk in the room full of potential investors—don’t worry about your appearance, you’re probably fine just wearing a t-shirt—and say, “My idea is great. Trust me, just fork over the dough.” That’s always worked for us.

Okay, maybe there’s a little more to it than that.

Obviously a huge amount of time and effort is required for the formation of your business model, building resources, and the plethora of other milestones before one gets in a room full of angel investors. We won’t spend time on that vital aspect of the process, instead, we’ve got a few often overlooked tips for when you’re in the room with the investors.

Know Your Audience

Walking into an angel investor presentation blind will not only diminish from your presentation, it’s a huge risk. Know the people you’ll be presenting to: their educational background, what fields they’ve worked in, what businesses they’ve been a part of. Identify the ones that you feel your pitch will resonate closely with and cater your presentation to them.

The Q&A session that will follow your presentation will play a key part in gaining the trust of potential investors. Anticipating what questions you may be asked will go a long way in putting their collective mind at ease. Predicting what questions you’ll be asked ties back to knowing your audience. Rehearse your responses to potential questions just as you would your actual presentation.

Be confident, Assertive, and Passionate

These are important qualities when giving any presentation, but especially in an investor presentation, where the sell is often difficult. Presenting an assured front is imperative to show that you truly believe your pitch.

But you need to go further than just showing the likely success of your business model, you need to be passionate about your idea, about your product. Don’t forget that your investors are investing in the financial viability of your idea, not the idea itself; still, don’t underestimate the selling power of visibly caring about what you’re doing. It can go a long way in building confidence in potential investors.

Be particularly assertive with those you’ve researched and identified as likely to resonate with your idea. They deserve extra attention because of the higher probability of investing.

Prove that your idea is unique

It’s vital to identify a specific problem and your proposed solution to it (i.e. your business idea.) And remember to show, not tell. Rather than saying, “this is a unique idea and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity;” it’s much more impactful to present concrete examples and evidence showing why that’s true.

Explain why your business model will succeed where others have failed, what makes your management team distinguished and capable, and tell a compelling story. Focus on the who, what, and why.

Investor presentations may seem daunting, but if you’ve put in the adequate time and effort (and followed these tips on crafting a professional presentation) then showing the merits of your pitch should be a walk in the park.

The Psychology of Color Use in PowerPoint Presentation

Posted on by Rick E

Do you know the difference between making a tie-dye shirt and a corporate presentation? Most people don’t seem to.

You wouldn’t go out in a red suit with green polka dots that has purple sparkles, yellow buttons, and shiny silver stars (unless you’re a clown at a birthday party, in which case…no judgment), so why dress your investor presentation like that? Color is like a magical potion, it can change our mood in a matter of seconds, without us even realizing it. While it’s a powerful tool to wield in your PowerPoint presentations, it’s important to utilize color correctly, because using the wrong colors will often leave your presentation worse off than if you had just left it in black and white.

We’ll divide our advice into two categories: how to contrast colors in a presentation, and how to choose the background colors for it.

Color Contrast:

-Avoid putting colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel on top one another (background and text) in any slide. This is particularly true for green and red, but the heavy contrast can have a straining effect on the eyes, making your audience grow tired from viewing your presentation.

Color Wheel by Excalibur
When choosing colors for your PowerPoint slide, it’s best not to layer colors that are opposite one another on the color wheel.

-15 to 25 percent of men have at least some mild color blindness, usually having trouble distinguishing between red and green, blue and black, or blue and purple. Avoid putting these colors too close to one another.

-Less is more: If you’ve established that you’re not making a tie-dye shirt, keep it simple and professional. Leave the creative endeavors to the professional presentation designers.

Color psychology:

Different colors carry specific connotations depending on the culture you find yourself in. For the sake of convenience, we’ll stick to western culture. The following colors can have a significant emotional impact when used as a background color:

Pink: Despite being a generally warm, pleasing color, it carries a connotation that denotes a lack or seriousness, and is generally regarded as unprofessional.

Red: This one’s tricky, and there is a bit of dispute over its practical use. It’s been shown to increase heart rate, which is often associated with agitation and restlessness, but it can also be associated with passion and desire. Use with caution, and avoid as a default background tone.

Blue: Typically regarded as a safe, calming color. However, because of this, it’s become so common in the business world that it’s now often regarded as unoriginal. Try blending different shades of blue and getting a little creative with it.

Green: Associated with financial success and interaction; usually a safe color for any business or presentation.

Black: Regarded as the most neutral of all colors, in regard to eliciting an emotional response. It also signifies finality, which can be useful in financial presentations.

While obtaining a rough understanding of color psychology will no doubt benefit you in your own PowerPoint presentations, it’s no match for the creative and graphic design expertise found with professional presentation designers.

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